I'm sure many of you have heard of Sergeant Mark IV's Brutal Hexen mod. Well, after been seemingly abandoned for a few years, I have continued Brutal HeXen where Sarge has left off. In addition to continuing the HeXen mod, I also have created a version for Heretic. Modified with an RPG system to make the games feel more unique. The hexen version is incomplete and requires more weapons for the mage as well as some alt-fires for the cleric. I have many more ideas for features in the rpg systems and the overall gameplay sometime in the near future. Download and play both for an amazing experience of brutality. Leave feedback please! Good feedback = progress.

Redead-ITA wrote:The heretic version is more complete i guess you should do better in exen dho the reason beingh i tried all the wizard weapons slot 1 is ok the others are not

But is a great mod nontheless

Yeah I forgot to mention that the Hexen version is incomplete. I still need to add alt fires for two of the cleric's weapons as well as finish the mage class. Play as the fighter or cleric for a more complete experience.

Speaking for the Heretic portion, this was actually really fun. I can't wait for the Hexen part to be more fleshed out.

Question, though: What exactly do the RPG mechanics do? I saw myself leveling up periodically, but I'm not 100% sure how that affected gameplay. Maybe a Readme, or some sort of Info screen would make things more evident.

As a side note, I'm a GIGANTIC fan of what you did with Corvus's starting wand. It just feels...... right.

I gave both mods a quick playthrough, mostly trying out weapons and effects, got a few critiques and suggestions which I hope may help you improve it.

Spoiler:

Brutal Heretic:- The Elven Wand feels amazing, both normal and tomed versions. Compared to vanilla, it has weight and a very gratifying oomph to every shot, and that makes it a weapon that's actually satisfying to use.- On the other hand, the Ethereal Crossbow and Dragonclaw feel quite lacking. The crossbow especially, firing faster and doing less damage makes it, in what I experienced, a less desirable weapon than the wand. For this weapon I'd recommend a slower fire rate with higher damage to balance, more akin to its vanilla behavior; tomed, I'd recommend making its explosions a few tics faster, so that enemies can't as easily avoid them and to give them functionality in open spaces, not only crapmed corridors. The Dragonclaw seems to do almost no damage at all; I can tell it fits the "chaingun" role, but its fire rate to damage ratio doesn't make it a viable weapon unless it's tomed. Then it's actually quite cool.- Firemace has a pretty satisfying HELL YEA sound, makes it actually fun to use. Phoenix Rod feels alright untomed, but the flamethrower could have a little more damage to it, in my opinion. Hellstaff is plain awesome, and fuck yea spreadgun, can't go wrong with that; for the Hellstaff though, I may recommend using Heretic II's sounds, as they appear to better suit the weapon, but admittedly that's a nitpick.

Brutal Hexen:- Fighter is unchanged from the Sarge's version, but he remains as satisfying as he was there. Quietus' main attack seems rather weak though, when compared to the rest of the fighter's weapons.- Cleric's mace is alright too, though quite similar, if not the same as, the fighter's axe and shield combo. Wraithverge, in my opinion, doesn't really need a lot of change, considering it summons a horde of flesh tearing phantasms. Firestorm's attack is amazing compared to the original: It's explosive, fiery, and gives that feeling of actually making things go boom. Serpent Staff's secondary doesn't really add much to the weapon as it is, it seems like a more accurate version of the main fire, sans health leeching (of course taking into account that this is still a very early version)- Sapphire wand primary works nice, though personally I miss the ripper effect. For the Mage's third weapon, perhaps a lightning ball effect similar to the Sphere of Annihilation spell from Heretic II, or akin to its Carnage Galore secondary, would be kickass for clearing rooms; basically, the mage could be a glass cannon archetype, able to clear a room full of baddies without much effort, but dying equally as easily.- A good thing that each character has their own special action, it works great to further difference them from each other. Perhaps they could gain different effects depending on the weapon, or character level (Similar to Project Brutality's weapon specials)

General:- Heretic's voxel decorations look quite cool, and glowy stuff always looks pretty- Huds lack an armor counter. I may also recommend a more comprehensive RPG level up message, as in, what goes up when you level up? In Hexen, I could only tell health and mana going up, as well as certain skills for weapons being unlocked.- Blood, gore, explosions, and folk metal. Seriously, Hexen and Heretic were made for the brutal treatment.- Hexen map pack would be, by all accounts, highly appreciated, recommended, encouraged, and pleaded for. Sadly, the game lacks large and satisfying map packs to use gameplay mods with, and even Heretic has its community chest, plus a few very high quality map packs.

Even with those few caveats, as it is it makes both games, especially Heretic's gameplay far more enjoyable than vanilla. Keep up the great work!

Edit: Also, the project logo is plain badass.

Edit 2: Finally, I just saw the screenshots, and that is an excellent use of the blue glass sword (I forgot her name,) it looks like quite a promising weapon.

@SlevinsThe RPG Mechanics aren't very important currently, but I've got a lot of stuff planned for them. What I have currently released is just a little demo of the gore and weapons and etc. Now my main focus is finishing the classes in hexen, balancing out the weapons and enemies, and making it a true rpg.

@SallazarSpellcaster

Spoiler:

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:...the Ethereal Crossbow and Dragonclaw feel quite lacking. The crossbow especially, firing faster and doing less damage makes it, in what I experienced, a less desirable weapon than the wand. For this weapon I'd recommend a slower fire rate with higher damage to balance, more akin to its vanilla behavior; tomed, I'd recommend making its explosions a few tics faster, so that enemies can't as easily avoid them and to give them functionality in open spaces, not only crapmed corridors. The Dragonclaw seems to do almost no damage at all; I can tell it fits the "chaingun" role, but its fire rate to damage ratio doesn't make it a viable weapon unless it's tomed. Then it's actually quite cool.

Yeah, I've noticed that about those weapons as well. I'll improve them asap.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:- Firemace has a pretty satisfying HELL YEA sound, makes it actually fun to use. Phoenix Rod feels alright untomed, but the flamethrower could have a little more damage to it, in my opinion. Hellstaff is plain awesome, and fuck yea spreadgun, can't go wrong with that; for the Hellstaff though, I may recommend using Heretic II's sounds, as they appear to better suit the weapon, but admittedly that's a nitpick.

The Phoenix Rod will undergo improvements. I kinda just threw it together right before releasing this. That tomed hellstaff is just a placeholder currently. I wanted to think of a really unique idea for it, so it will have a much more interesting powered mode in V2. I'll check out those heretic 2 sounds too. All of the heretic weapons are eventually going to get the same system of alternate fire modes unlocked through leveling up, and those alternate attacks will get their own tome upgrade as well. This might not appear next version though, since I will now have to think of another 16-or-so attacks.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:- Fighter is unchanged from the Sarge's version, but he remains as satisfying as he was there. Quietus' main attack seems rather weak though, when compared to the rest of the fighter's weapons.

Except for minor fixes in the weapon attacks, appearance, etc, the fighter is indeed pretty much the same as before. The quietus's main attack is pretty weak, but it also doesn't use mana. That was a big issue before with sarge's, since it was a crappy melee attack, but it used like 20 of each mana upon hitting someone. I'm guessing that wasn't intentional. I'll find a way to make it's main attack better.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:- Cleric's mace is alright too, though quite similar, if not the same as, the fighter's axe and shield combo. Wraithverge, in my opinion, doesn't really need a lot of change, considering it summons a horde of flesh tearing phantasms. Firestorm's attack is amazing compared to the original: It's explosive, fiery, and gives that feeling of actually making things go boom. Serpent Staff's secondary doesn't really add much to the weapon as it is, it seems like a more accurate version of the main fire, sans health leeching (of course taking into account that this is still a very early version)

The wraithverge will get a secondary attack mode, which will probably be some sort of AoE one. I'm honestly thinking about removing the firestorm as a weapon, and replacing it with a red-lightning staff concept I have. The reasons are 1. I couldn't think of a unique secondary attack if my damn life depended on it, and 2. I have a concept of using some sort of elemental ability in the future, and the gloves would probably be used to cast the elementary attacks, so the firestorm would feel out of place as a generic weapon. The serpent staff alt-fire is kinda placeholder too. It's supposed to be some kind of paralyzing dart attack, but it is really lame.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:- Sapphire wand primary works nice, though personally I miss the ripper effect. For the Mage's third weapon, perhaps a lightning ball effect similar to the Sphere of Annihilation spell from Heretic II, or akin to its Carnage Galore secondary, would be kickass for clearing rooms; basically, the mage could be a glass cannon archetype, able to clear a room full of baddies without much effort, but dying equally as easily.

Sounds like some neat ideas. I'll definitely need some inspirations for most of the mage's stuff.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:- A good thing that each character has their own special action, it works great to further difference them from each other. Perhaps they could gain different effects depending on the weapon, or character level (Similar to Project Brutality's weapon specials)

I've got a lot of stuff planned as far as making the classes play differently. I'm planning on having a slot 5 weapon, that uses naturally regenerating ability energy for ammo, and at the start of the game you choose a certain playstyle for your class, for example, you might start a game as the mage, and immediately you are asked what kind of sorcery you want to use the rest of the game, and you can choose something like necromancy or other types of sorcery. The choice grants certain passive abilities and determines what your slot 5 weapon does. I just home I can accomplish making something so convoluted.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:- Heretic's voxel decorations look quite cool, and glowy stuff always looks pretty- Huds lack an armor counter. I may also recommend a more comprehensive RPG level up message, as in, what goes up when you level up? In Hexen, I could only tell health and mana going up, as well as certain skills for weapons being unlocked.- Blood, gore, explosions, and folk metal. Seriously, Hexen and Heretic were made for the brutal treatment.- Hexen map pack would be, by all accounts, highly appreciated, recommended, encouraged, and pleaded for. Sadly, the game lacks large and satisfying map packs to use gameplay mods with, and even Heretic has its community chest, plus a few very high quality map packs.

Voxels are really sweet. I'm actually in the progress of making a new HUD, one that is much nicer looking, has an armor counter, and is made entirely from scratch (graphics wise at least). Leveling up only affects a few thing right now, such as health, ammo capacity (hexen only), accuracy (only the fighter's crossbow currently), physical strength, ranged strength (not in effect yet), and enemy health. So it may not seem like anything's changing since the enemies are also getting a little level-up along with you. I've got more plans (damn, that's a lot of plans) for creating compatibility patches for other people's mappacks. It wouldn't be much work, and it would be well worth it, so I'll post any patches I make here.

SallazarSpellcaster wrote:Finally, I just saw the screenshots, and that is an excellent use of the blue glass sword (I forgot her name,) it looks like quite a promising weapon.

Yeah, I don't know who did the sprites for it though. I went back like 2 or 3 years on the spriting carnval and found that along with a lot of other medieval themed weaponry. I saved the pngs to my computer but forgot to write down credits.

Also,

Spoiler:

that sword is from a spawn that replaces the dragonskin bracers.

Last edited by Seidolon on Mon Mar 07, 2016 8:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Interesting, I actually signed up to ask something when I found this, so hey everyone!

Anyway, what happens when it says that I leveled up?

I have an idea if there's room for it? When you level up, can't you bring up some menu where you can choose to improve a weapons damage or player speed, mana regen, or similar?

Thing is, that I was actually thinking of such a system for a mod that I wanted to do for Hexen, but this mod already have a level up feature!I will not go into any details, cause the rules text specificly says that I shouldn't so!